Shortly after the management take-over of the Church of Scientology in 1981-82 plans were drawn to establish a seperate legal body to raise funds outside the reach of the Church.

The new Church management, headed by David Miscavige, had long before it took over control of the Church realized that most Scientologists are incredibly strong in their belief and commitment to L. Ron Hubbard (LRH). When David Miscavige and his team overtook the Church they "cleaned out" the entire organisation by applying rough ethics and justice bordering to complete insanity. His way of managing was and still is completely totalitarian. Staff members who opposed the methods of the new management or who was asking too many questions was send on special projects referred to as DPF (Deck Project Force) and the RPF (Rehabilitation Project Force). These projects were/are (the RPF still exist and hundreds of people are being forced to do it daily) basically consisting of two activities:

1) Hard physical work with the main purpose of pushing the individuals physical limits (like running around a tree for 12 hours a day in the dessert without sufficient nutrition). Also renovating the buildings of the Church are still done by people of the RPF. But it is not done in regular workhours. It is done as a penalty. It is hard work from early morning to late night with a minimum of sleep and extreme pressure at all time.

2) Confessions. Writing down all ones wrongdoings, also called overts, and all the wrongdoings that nobody knows about, called withholds. Sometimes the confessions would be in the form of auditing with an auditor asking about all kind of overts and withholds, other times it would be the person writing them down on a piece of paper (O/W write-up).

The combination of these two activities when carried on for months sometimes years, will at some point break most individuals. Being under extreme physical pressure, never able to perform well enough to meet unrealistic targets and then being forced to constantly focus on all ones misdeeds will sooner or later make a person cave in. With a lack of sleep and insufficient nutrition the individual can't withstand the pressure and start feeling that he/she is a bad person, insufficient and inferior and should be granted no rights. At that point he/she will also give in completely to his leaders, and that is the end product of RPF.

I can recommend the book "1984" written by George Orwell as it covers this way of breaking individuals, also called "brain washing", rather thoroughly. It was written in 1948 and is not about Church of Scientology, but the similarities between the society he decripes and the way the Church of Scientology is being run are so close that David Miscavige probably considers this book dangerous and L. Ron Hubbards mention of it on the famous Philadelphia Doctorate Course Lectures has been deleted.

Another way of "cleaning out" the organization was to interrogate the membes in a police-state kind of way. Typically two or more interrogaters would be standing behind the auditor yelling and screaming accusations aginst the member being under suspicion for something. This to find out whether the member was for or against the new management and whether or not the person was controlable.

There were various other ways, but the main point is that by creating an atmosphere of fear throughout the organization people would either leave or adapt. After two years most of the previous leaders were gone. Most of the people who had been trained and posted by LRH were gone. The organization had reduced to well under half size, but the people who remained was now completely under control and supporting the new management, and that was the entire product of the "clean out".

Having members who supports you unconditionally opens many opportunities. The new management wants nothing less than money and power, the well known motives which are always behind people acting in such a way.

The Church was still there. Dramatically reduced in size and power, but still existing. The year was 1984. Management decided to loosen the grip and lighten the atmosphere, someone else was blamed for the rough times that had just prevailed. In fact the previous top organizational leader, Bil Franks, and the previous top technical leader David Mayo were excommunicated and labelled "Suppressive Person" (SP Declared) and was given the blame for all the rough times the Church had been through. The new management took the credit for "spotting the true SP´s" and "getting things sorted out". A perfect set-up. And since all the remaining members were fully under control and supporting their management unconditionally, they of course bought it without asking any questions.

The new leaders had to its own satisfaction demonstrated that its current members would buy anything.

If one believes in coincidences it so happens that the title of George Orwell's book about totalitarian regimes and brain washing is also the year of the foundation of the International Association of Scientologists. The year was 1984. And that was also the year I joined the Church of Scientology.

I was a staff member in Scientology Kirken Denmark when International Association of Scientologists (IAS) was founded. It happened by a number of executives (including David Miscavige of course) being gathered at Saint Hill UK all signing the "Pledge to Manakind".

This was video recorded and shown to the staff around the various local organizations.

A few years earlier the clean-out had caused problems. The Church had come under massive attacks. Many of the people who had been tortured, mentally or physically, didn't put up with it and consequently sued the Church. Also parishioners who had gotten serious health or mental problems from their affiliation with the Church placed enormous claims. Church attorneys had to settle several cases (the most famous probably the 1985 Portland case) in order to minimize the losses, but even so, the huge monetary compensations to be paid threatened the financial foundation of the Church. A legal entity to operate independent from the Church was the answer. It would still survive if the Church would go bust. But it should be an international entity not subjected to the laws of any specific country. There would not be any employees and it would be operated by a board of unnamed people. It's members (source of funds) would be all Scientologists from all Church organizations around the planet. Danish lawyer Jakob Arrevad was the legal brain behind The International Association of Scientologists (IAS).

In order to quickly fill up the money tank of IAS an order was issued that no Church Organization were not to deliver any services to any individual who was not a member of the IAS. So the problem was simply put out on the local services organizations who then had to explain to their parishioners that they were to pay an IAS membership in order to get further services. "In return" people would get a special IAS discount on all the services bought. New prices was worked out and issued. On the new pricelists there were now non-discounted prices and IAS discounted prices. But this was just empty sales talk as the non-discounted prices really didn't exist. As nobody could get services without being a member you would never ever get to pay the non-discounted price. It was just a stunt designed to make the expense of the membership more digestible.

AFHOPPEREN
Mine 20 år i Scientology
published by
Kristeligt Dagblads Forlag
on
28th September 2011

Jyllandsposten wrote

A well written and captivating portrayal of life with Scientology. But also in a broader sense a relevant journey into a state of mind, where sci-fi-science meets religiosity and management thinking.

’The Defector’ is well written and shocking. Especially the detailed descriptions of the main character's equal parts of intoxication and basic anxiety of being part of something larger...

The book is intelligently composed. Robert Dam 'cross-cuts' between his own history and the history of the Scientology movement from its beginnings with the author Hubbards bestseller 'Dianetics - The Modern Science og Mental Health' from 1950 through the scandals, the criticism and his death in 1986 and up until today.

Dam's story about Scientology is the story of what faith and certainty can do to a human being.But it is also a moral tale about putting a stop to something and to have the courage to dare do away with a part of ones' self.

Politiken wrote

Strong Scientology-biography confronts 20 years of fake and scam

In ’The Defector’ Robert Dam tells about his almost 20 years in Scientology, up till 2003, where he decided to tell the world about the greedy and lying system created by the science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in 1950, who then carried on to develop his own religion...

Robert Dam wrote a website for ex-scientologists, which is the basis of his book..that has its strength in the well writen personal story, which the author apparently lays out undisguised.